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Post by WildKnight on Sept 10, 2012 18:10:36 GMT -5
No, just using humor to highlight something that I think is true; most costumes in comics are absurdly skin tight (and for the record, I've seen PLENTY of dudes in comics with their musculature drawn to a degree that you could NEVER see under any clothing, no matter how tight. And yes, I've seen a belly button or two. There's actually a famous Superman image where not only is his belly button evident, his "bulge" is pretty well "defined" as well)
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Post by WildKnight on Sept 10, 2012 18:13:30 GMT -5
Men and women are both drawn in ridiculous fashion in comics. I love picking on the way Magneto is drawn as a bodybuilder. Dude is like 200 years old and has a body that would send Conan the Barbarian into a Haagen Dazs-fueled depression. If there's inequality here, large parts of it have to do with the fact that muscles are often helpful to superheroes.. for the most part, enormous breasts are not. And I find that the success of a female character, financially speaking, is much more dependent on her sex appeal than her powers or her story or whatever, as compared to guys. I think people are more likely to react positively to a character like Thing than his theoretical distaff counterpart (does he have one?). Oh, and least fanservicey female comic character ever?: ~TWF I was going to counter you with Madam Web, but even she was sometimes drawn with a bizarrely athletic figure for an old woman, so yeah... brain in a jar it is! Not all women in comic books have giant breasts, though, just like not all men in comics are equally ultra-buff. In fact, almost every female character has a widely varying bustline depending on the artist 8)
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Post by takewithfood on Sept 10, 2012 18:21:48 GMT -5
Actually, the bust-size inconsistency tends to work in favour of the argument that bust size is not a character trait, but fan service. It's one thing to say that a certain character happens to be busty, while another is not - it's another to allow artists to change their figures to suit themselves and their audience on a whim. I know there are characters who are canonically one way or another (Power Girl, Jubilee, for example), but I find they're rare exceptions. EDIT: And yeah, Madam Web is a weird one. I mean, yikes. ~TWF
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Post by WildKnight on Sept 10, 2012 18:30:20 GMT -5
Actually, the bust-size inconsistency tends to work in favour of the argument that bust size is not a character trait, but fan service. It's one thing to say that a certain character happens to be busty, while another is not - it's another to allow artists to change their figures to suit themselves and their audience on a whim. I know there are characters who are canonically one way or another (Power Girl, Jubilee, for example), but I find they're rare exceptions. EDIT: And yeah, Madam Web is a weird one. I mean, yikes. ~TWF Guys get the same "random physique" treatment all the time. I don't think it's fanservice, I think it's what happens when you have different artists putting their take on the same characters over time. Look at Hank Pym. He's been drawn as everything from equal to Cap (in physical appearance... nearly identical, in fact...) to downright scrawny. It's just an issue of interpretation. Sadly, the personalities of a lot of these characters are similarly elastic. "Yikes" doesn't cover it on the Madam Web pic. I feel icky.
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Post by roxolid on Sept 10, 2012 18:30:44 GMT -5
They must have a template for glamour models and draw on the wrinkles afterwards.
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Post by WildKnight on Sept 10, 2012 18:33:57 GMT -5
They must have a template for glamour models and draw on the wrinkles afterwards. Given that back in the day, these guys used to look at pinup models to draw their female figures, you might not be far off...
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Post by Manticore on Sept 10, 2012 18:42:38 GMT -5
Some comic book artists *really really* like to draw beautiful women. Not that there's anything wrong with that, right?
I've noticed that Mary Jane Watson's appearance seems astonishingly variable. (I guess because every artist has a different idea of what a hot redhead should look like.)
In pretty much every visual medium I am constantly bombarded with images of people many times more attractive than I'll ever be, so I've learned to ignore it. I guess I don't mind so much as long as the artist doesn't trace from porn photos and pretend that it's his own artwork. (DAMN YOU, GREG LAND!!!)
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Post by takewithfood on Sept 10, 2012 19:00:58 GMT -5
It's been funny watching Kavita Rao de-age and sexen-up over time. She started out like this: And somehow wound up like this: I'm 80% sure that isn't the real text.. ~TWF
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Post by WildKnight on Sept 10, 2012 19:03:01 GMT -5
It's been funny watching Kavita Rao de-age and sexen-up over time. She started out like this: And somehow wound up like this: I'm 80% sure that isn't the real text.. ~TWF That is striking...
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Post by Beacon on Sept 11, 2012 1:02:09 GMT -5
Bunch of random thoughts:
Aunt May has the same problem as Madame Web (but luckily without the skintight outfit).
The “Bayville Sirens” episode of X-Men Evolution where the girls wear leather was kind of fanservicey.
While it’s inappropriate for some characters, there are certain characters that would feel wrong without it. Wally Wood made sure that Power Girl’s most recognizable feature is her breasts. MJ is a supermodel so she ought to look like one. Fanservice is a huge part of the appeal of comics like Empowered (though that one is kind of a deconstruction) and Danger Girl.
I’m so happy I’m not the only one bothered by Magneto. I know there’s all kinds of explanations as to how he’s still alive in the first place but there’s no escaping that he’s still way too ripped for a Holocaust survivor.
STOP POSTING NAKED PICTURES OF NO GIRL, YOU PERV!
She’s still kind of fanservicey on occasion but Big Barda has a body type you don’t see much in comics.
The change in Squirrel girl really bugs me. When she was introduced she was downright ugly. When they had her join the Great Lakes Avengers she was cute in a geeky bucktoothed way. Now she’s with the Avengers and she looks exactly like all the other women (but with a tail).
Nightwing is the only male character I know of that gets objectified to the degree that the females do.
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Post by WildKnight on Sept 11, 2012 5:53:53 GMT -5
The “Bayville Sirens” episode of X-Men Evolution where the girls wear leather was kind of fanservicey. True. That episode outright disturbed me, to be frank. Not even remotely true.
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Post by WildKnight on Sept 11, 2012 8:51:41 GMT -5
Look! A dude totally being NOT objectified in comics... ... and Batman is wearing less clothes than his female counterpart here... ... even when you're made of metal, you might as well call yourself Captain Beefcake... Seriously guys, just not seeing a difference in treatment here. The "pinup" thing is gender neutral. (I actually found a ridiculous number of these kind of shots of Colossus... I didn't know he was so popular with the ladies)
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Post by takewithfood on Sept 11, 2012 9:59:27 GMT -5
The guys tend to be less sexually objectified, and that's a big part of the difference. I know it looks similar, but since heterosexual adolescent boys have often/traditionally been the target audience of comic books, the women are presented as sex objects, and the men are presented as inspiration, or optionally as role models or something in that neighbourhood. What's important about this is that "Wow, he's so strong and awesome!" is a very different reaction than "Woah, I'd hit that." There's an imbalance, or at least a perceived imbalance in the level of respect in those two reactions. And that rubs a lot of people the wrong way. But it really isn't as bad as people who don't actually read comic books tend to think it is. Most people are exposed only to comic book cover art, and typically only when someone has bothered to make a fuss about it. Like, recently there was a big fuss over this Catwoman cover: She's in a pretty ridiculous pose for the sole purpose of somehow fitting her entire ass AND enormous amounts of needlessly exposed cleavage in the same shot. It was wonderfully satirized by Kate Beaton, among others. Basically, I think comic book writers and creators and artists can do a lot better. On principle I'm bothered by the objectification of both male and female characters in comic books, slightly more so in the case of the female ones. But honestly, I think I'm more irritated as a writer by the laziness/sell-outyiness of it all, and as a reader by the insulting assumption that I'm so easily amused by cartoon muscles and breasts. ~TWF
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Post by WildKnight on Sept 11, 2012 10:02:42 GMT -5
I'm sorry, but that strikes me as one of the biggest loads of bullshit in the history of giant loads of bullshit.
"Because the audience is boys, what's okay for male characters isn't okay for female characters."
Ridiculous.
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Post by Silentking Alpha on Sept 11, 2012 11:41:30 GMT -5
Sounds sexist. What WK pointed out that is. Then again, you can making anything sound sexist or racist.
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